4 Tips for Developing a Sound SEO Strategy

Written by: Jason Bayless | March 18, 2015

There is no shortage of experts and gurus who offer their opinion on what the best SEO strategy should be. First of all, it is paramount for any site owner to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to developing an efficacious SEO strategy. This is especially true in light of Google’s Panda Update. There are numerous articles that will get you started, however, it will take some research and creativity to develop and implement a strategy that will be optimized for your particular site and industry.

Because every site is different, and the goals of each business will vary throughout the various stages of their SEO campaign, it stands to reason that each individual campaign will require a certain level of specificity, based on the particular needs and goals of the company. Please understand that the aforementioned statement does not mean that an SEO campaign should not have structure and a basic foundation; it is simply implicit of the fact that need and goals create the requisite for variance in order to design a strategy that will leverage and optimize your efforts.

The Common Denominators

Before moving on to some of the variables that can be adjusted based on the specific nature of the business and its individual goals, it would be a good idea to get the obvious elements and dynamics out of the way. No matter what your focus, there are certain elements of SEO that should be a part of every SEO strategy.

The social element: This element is immensely important, because the use of social media platforms presents the potential for content to go viral. It also provides the optimal environment for on-site customer engagement, and at the end of the day, that is the name of the game.

Link building: Although link building is not as easy as it once was, thanks to Penguin, it is still a vital aspect of SEO. Link building strategies include manual requests, link creation that is scalable and content based link strategies.

Keyword targeting: This goes without saying; however, it is important to understand that it requires substantially more effort and consideration than in the past. You should use brainstorming sessions to expand the creativity of the way that keyword targeting is implemented. On-page optimization will also be very important as far as keywords will go. Although this should go without saying, the use of long-tail keywords should be favored over individual, high-competition keywords.

Accessible, High-Quality Content: There is no way to express the level of importance that should be placed on content creation. Not only does it play a dominant role in determining search engine rankings, but it also influences the customer experience after they arrive on your site.

These four elements of SEO is where every website owner should begin. Once you build a solid and sustainable foundation, you will be able to plug in the individualized pieces of your SEO infrastructure.

Optimize Existing Content

One common mistake when attempting to implement a new SEO strategies is that they only focus on new the new content. In other words, they don’t make retroactive adjustments. Although ensuring that all new content that is added to the site is high-quality content, and that is has been completely optimized, will definitely get you going in the right direction; there is more to the equation. You should go back and optimize all existing content on the site. This will be time consuming and tedious; however, it will be well worth it. Additionally, you should make the effort to delete any content that could be considered “thin.”

Update the Content Daily

Another poor practice that will hurt SEO efforts is inconsistency in posting new relevant content. Not only should the site have new content posted on a daily basis, it is also a good idea to practice posting the content at the same time each day.

Again, there is no cookie cutter approach to developing a successful SEO strategy, but if you build a strong foundation, you will be able to experiment with a number of elemental variations until you find the formula that works for you.